The Hanwell Carnival is taking a break this year and not wanting to disappoint the children of Hanwell, the organisers planned a fun-draising event instead. GoodGymers joined the local volunteers to get The Viaduct pub ready for the big day tomorrow.

In the pub garden, the first thing to do was make space by moving the pub's garden furniture, putting picnic benches on the lawn. Then, it was time for gazebo building.

The gazebos were put in the gaps left around the tables and chairs. The first one involved a lot of trial and error as many of the volunteers had erected them before, but no one definitively knew all of the steps needed. Eventually, it was up and it needed to be secured to some trees and pegged down to stop it blowing away or being stolen.

"I saw someone walking down the street with a giant tent on their back" - Harvey

Once the gazebo was tethered down (involving some YouTube learning for Iram, Chris, Harvey and Sevan), it was onto the next 4, which went up pretty easily now they had the know how. There were a few extra levels of difficulty to master, like working around a raised bed where the tent leg needed to be. Chris wielded Thor's hammer to knock the chunky tent pegs in, at one point seemingly breaking them through concrete 🤯🔨💪.

Iram and Roberta were asked to help to decorating the garden and car park, putting up colourful netting to protect the princess who'll be coming tomorrow from the eager children. There were also colourful flag poles to display in the car park which looked brilliant once they were cable tied into place.

The team were able to build all of the gazebos and place many of decorations too. The fundraising event is set up for success with the regular volunteers ready to put the final touches in place tomorrow, like face painting and some traditional fairground games. We hope they have a great day!

The second appearance GoodGym Ealing made at Featherstone High School Learnscape was all about woodchipping a path running through the length of the garden, connecting its two gates. Volunteers Alex, Gurpal, Andrew and Ki were very eager to get the task going as five heavy bags of woodchip were awaiting to be spread. The only missing part was more hands!

Luckily, GoodGym came with a strong team again:

• Jags, who regularly engages in Southall's community work, within or outside GoodGym
• Sevan, Steph and Kash returning to Featherstone School after the fierce log moving last month
• Rainu and Roberta coming back for more GoodGymming after joining the team recently

We had three wheelbarrows for ten people to complete the woodchipping task. How many did we use? None! Dragging and tipping bags proved to be more effective, both as a full-body workout and as a way of distributing woodchip. But that's not all! Between moving bags and spreading the chips, we had to lay a membrane on the entire length of the path and pin it to hard, dry soil. We had one mallet for the pins, so we had to get creative!

Having 90 minutes for the task, we knew we had to get focussed. Did we? Driven by our desire for a challenge, we allowed ourselves to get distracted by a side mini landscaping project. We fulfilled Alex's and Jags' vision of an outdoor classroom, having a mound of soil, spare woodchip, heavy logs and donated rubber mats as materials. See the outcome in the photos!

Although we have not started woodchipping until about 20 minutes before the end of the task - believe it or not - we've made it: the new path was laid!

"Thank you so much for all your time, advice and work - I can't believe how much we achieved in the time!" - Alex, the task owner.

With another satisfying session under the belt that Sunday, we split: running, walking or cycling, back home or for yet another task in the day.